Monthly Archives: April 2012

This weekend, I re-viewed a movie which I hadn’t seen in almost 30 years. Risky Business (1983) was an atypical teen romance movie from the 80s, which in a very exaggerated artistic fashion portrayed the heart of the conflict faced by modern teens. The steamy opening scene, which was recounted as a dream sequence, portrayed the main character discovering an attractive young woman taking a shower, who invited him to come scrub her back. As Joel (the main character portrayed by Tom Cruise) approached the shower, the visibility was more and more obscured by steam, until he found himself suddenly at his High School three hours late for his college entrance exams. This scene clearly set out the theme of the whole movie, which was his seeking a resolution to his inner conflict between his natural desires for pleasure, and his parents’ desire for him to focus on creating a good future for himself through excelling at school.

This theme pervades virtually all chronic medical issues, where the natural instincts have been suppressed and converted into disease forms at both the biological and psychological levels. There are a number of scenes in the movie which beautifully portray the main character’s inner conflict, and un-natural two-sidedness to his character, where he was a sweet and compliant son on one side, and the ruthless and amoral businessman on the other.

In terms of Heilkunst medicine, we can point out the remedy Anacardium, which directly addresses this form of split in the human being, where it is as if the forces of good and evil are battling it out within. There are some very extreme presentations of this state of mind, which can be witnessed at the local mental institution, but in its milder forms, we witness that just about every patient has to confront this false split within themselves sooner or later in their treatment.

For those who are interested in a much deeper historical exploration of the origin of this form of armoring, Dr. Wilhelm Reich outlined it in tremendous scientific detail, and is an area of study which is very rewarding to those who wish to engage with it. He does a tremendous job in linking the historical process of socio-economic changes in our family structures with both the biological and psychological processes of armoring which emerged as a result of an increasing shift into a patriarchal structure. The obvious link with the element of prostitution in the film becomes very clear from this perspective.

For the purposes of this blog post, and getting back to the artistic content of Risky Business, the film’s story and ending left an impression of a true reconciliation between the two sides of his conflict — rather than the false path of choosing one side or the other (being either the “good” boy, or the eternal rebel), the audience witnesses Joel breaking through his false outer form, and learning how to use the “dark side” to fuel his true creative power, rather than to struggle to hold it at bay.

There is a tremendously beautifully shot love-making scene towards the end of the movie, which takes place on a public train, and which ends with an outside shot of the train reaching the end of the line, accompanied by the sound of the train discharging as its lights go out for the night. This is a brilliant artistic expression of the complete function of the orgasm, which the main character has just experienced, and is the doorway through which his character reconciliation becomes possible.

There is a key prop throughout the film, which is a glass “egg” art object, prized by the Mother, and displayed on the family’s mantlepiece. There are probably multiple artistic interpretations of its fate towards the end of the film (where a tiny crack is discovered at its centre), but I would like to offer that it represents the crack in Joel’s armoring, which now allows him to flow more fully through his life, allowing both the elements of light and dark to pass through him freely. I’m reminded of the line in the song There is a Crack in Everything (by Leonard Cohen, as recently coverd by “The Once”), which says “There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.”

Peering beyond all the overtly sexual and amoral content of this film, which some may find difficult to consume, a very effective artistic message lies at the root, in terms of the path we all need to find within ourselves toward a similar reconciliation. Just as in the fact that many of the most powerful homeopathic remedies are derived from poisonous substances, it is also similarly true for powerful art often being derived from “toxic” or difficult subject matter. “Poisons make the best medicines”, and likewise, an ability to look past the surface of the film into its essence can provide a strong mirror and transformation of our own energy structure, as an adjunct to our Heilkunst treatment.

Most of you are probably already aware of the problems with medicating our municipal water supply with fluoride, and likewise with other sources we can bring into our own homes, such as fluoridated toothpaste. If you aren’t yet aware of this, please go and research the dangers of fluoride before you read the rest of today’s blog post, and before you buy another tube of fluoridated toothpaste!

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I’d like to point out the next health issue worth considering for your dental health. The reasons we brush our teeth include hygiene, as well as the prevention of tooth decay or cavities. Leaving aside the dietary factors contributing to greater or lesser health of our teeth, the issue of what we put on our toothbrush can also be a contributing factor to cavitation.

A common ingredient in just about every brand of toothpaste, natural, or non, is glycerine. In itself, it is not toxic, and otherwise not worthy of our attention regarding our general health. However, when glycerine is spread over the surface of our teeth, it leaves a film or residue which does not easily come off — it can take somewhere between two and three dozen rinsings of the mouth to completely remove it. I think it would be a safe bet to say that everyone reading this blog does not rinse their mouth that many times after brushing their teeth.

So, what is the concern with having this glycerine film on our teeth? The thing is, that our teeth are neither static or solid, as we tend to imagine them, and they are continually in a process of flux of demineralization and remineralization. Elements such as calcium and phosphorous, amongst others, are continually flowing out of our teeth, through the bloodstream to other parts of the body, while a new influx is continuously flowing back into the teeth. Imagining this very living process certainly adds more weight to the role of proper nutrition, as our whole body is constantly in a state of rebuilding or repairing one thing, or another.

The film of glycerine residue from toothpaste which coats our teeth blocks this natural demineralization / remineralization process, and therefore creates the conditions of accelerated tooth decay or cavitation in our mouths. Even when someone’s diet and oral hygiene habits are “perfect” for having healthy teeth, this issue with the glycerine-based toothpastes can be enough to create very undesirable and unexpected results in the mouth.

There are a variety of commercial alternatives to toothpaste available, such as tooth soap (your mother always threatened to wash your mouth out with soap!), or tooth powders, such as “Theraneem Naturals” which was recently stocked at The Feel Good Store here in Saint John. These are all glycerine and fluoride free, and you can explore the variety of textures and flavours as suit your taste the best.

“Prescribed Fire” is a technique used in forestry to promote the health of the eco-system; it cleans up forest floor debris and old growth, and triggers new growth, which is suitable for animal habitat. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and when done correctly, nature repays the compliment with new healthy growth. This deliberate intervention is also a good way to prevent the large, out-of-control blazes, such as those suffered in British Columbia a few summers ago. When fire is continuously suppressed, the life cycle of the forest is interrupted and begins to spiral towards disaster. Nature will always find a way to restore balance, no matter what degree of sacrifice and destruction is required.

This same logic is also true for our own health – inflammation has a positive purpose for our health and development. Fever, for example, is not only a powerful part of our immune response, but it is also a trigger for the stages of childhood development. It has been widely observed that a child will go through a growth spurt after resolving a childhood illness, such as measles or chicken pox. If fever is suppressed with drugs or herbs, then the toxins and microbes are stored in the cells, rather than burned off. Also, a lack of fevers in childhood sets the stage for cancer later in life, as the unexpressed energy of the fever needs to manifest in another form. Nature balances the equation here as well. The question of what to do for a child in the face of infection and fever puts many parents into a dilemma. On the one hand, the impulse to protect the child from the assumed dangers of fever is unfortunately translated into a suppressive medical approach, which takes its toll on long-term health. Oh the other hand, sitting back and doing nothing can also raise a great deal of anxiety – letting nature take its course may be a risk in certain cases. So the question shouldn’t be to intervene or not, but how to do so in accordance with nature and without risking unnecessary damage. Like the forestry example above, Homeopathy imitates nature, and “fights fire with fire”, with speedy results, and no side-effects. Childhood fevers can be safely and easily treated with homeopathic remedies, which act to resolve the fever process more quickly, rather than suppress it. The Law of Similars, or “like cures like”, means that the correct homeopathic remedy will move the fever forward in the direction it is already going, rather than stall it. The result is a quicker resolution of the fever, with less pain and suffering, and without the toxic by-products of the fever being stored in the cellular memory. A number of parents are also choosing to use equivalent Homeopathic remedies in place of the standard vaccine program. Fever is only one example of a healthy life function that can be suppressed. Certain physical traumas and emotional shocks can also create a blockage in the life force. These become the kindling which eventually ignites the latent diseases that have been passed down through the family tree, such as cancer and heart disease, which first start to manifest in “minor” symptoms, such as migraines, or chronic infections. By systematically removing these blockages, any symptoms or tendency towards illness will no longer find anywhere to root, and the life force will be able to function in full radiant health.

The following conversation occurred by email with a reader of these blog posts, Steven Ings. I asked for Steven’s permission to publish these conversations, as they include many questions and illuminations of the principles I’ve been discussing in my recent series on the Genotypes and Phenotypes. In order to create an actual conversation-like flow, I’ve cut and paste the sequences to be more natural to the conversation we would have had in person, if we weren’t going back and forth on different points in our email sequence. I’ve retained Steven’s text in a plain font, and put all of my responses in italics, in order to differentiate who is the speaker at any given point. Due to the total length, I’ve broken the conversation up into four pieces to be published on four subsequent days. This is part 4:

April 15, 1999: in the wee hours of the morning the physical heart stopped. The physical body “died,” yet “I” continued. Without going into the details of the “Near Life” sequences, “I” was free from timespace spacetime. BEing. ISness. KnowingBeing BeingKnowing.

Resuscitated at 1:59 AM PDT, I now relate to Carl Jung’s words, “Now I must return to the ‘box system’ again. For it seems to me as if behind the horizon of the cosmos a three-dimensional world has been artificially built up, in which each person sits by himself in a little box. And now I should have to convince myself all over again that this was important! Life and the whole world struck me as a prison, and it bothered me beyond measure that I should again be finding all that quite in order. I had been so glad to shed it all, and now it had come about that I – along with everyone else – would again be hung up in a box by a thread.” Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

On this side, i.e., in the “box” of timespace spacetime, there is plenty of busy-ness and very little knowing-being. There are lots of ideas and bookshelves filled knowledge; however, knowledge is different from knowingbeing beingknowing.

I especially like Robert Heinlein’s word “grok” in Stranger in a Strange Land: “Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes the observed” … “to understand [something] so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you.” Stranger in a Strange Land, p. 213

There are different degrees of “knowing”, and different degrees of engagement with provings and other modes of knowing remedies.

Dr. Edward Bach seems to have accomplished “merging with.” “A great nature lover, Edward Bach was also extremely sensitive. In his quest for new remedies he would go into the countryside, pick the petal of a single flower, and lay it on his tongue. With the help of his immense sensitivity he was able to feel the effect of a plant on the human body and psyche.”

Everyone has a specific pathway to their own inner knowing, or genius, and the trick is to activate it, so that we can each bring the special form of knowledge that we hold the key to – this initial act of genius by each individual takes a special kind of work, but then subsequently, that piece of knowledge can be appropriated by the full scientific mind (intellectual AND emotional mind), and it can become a common form of knowledge.

Thank you for taking the time to initiate a conversation about my blogs, Steven – it is a pleasure to engage with someone who is educated about these topics, and is able to get into a higher-level discussion.

The following conversation occurred by email with a reader of these blog posts, Steven Ings. I asked for Steven’s permission to publish these conversations, as they include many questions and illuminations of the principles I’ve been discussing in my recent series on the Genotypes and Phenotypes. In order to create an actual conversation-like flow, I’ve cut and paste the sequences to be more natural to the conversation we would have had in person, if we weren’t going back and forth on different points in our email sequence. I’ve retained Steven’s text in a plain font, and put all of my responses in italics, in order to differentiate who is the speaker at any given point. Due to the total length, I’ve broken the conversation up into four pieces to be published on four subsequent days. This is part 3:

I admit that one of my favorite subjects involves your question, “To what degree is the human being capable of knowing rather than believing?”

Many years ago while looking at The American Heritage dic·tion·ar·y I noticed that the word “belie” immediately precedes the word “belief.” Notice the word “lie” in both words. The significance of that discovery did not ripen until our son was born. As he grew older, I noticed occasions when I was speaking with and acting toward Adam in the same way that my Dad had spoken with and acted toward me. Then, one day when he was four years old, Adam said to his friend Jason, “It’s true. My Dad said so.”

Authority is always a necessary, interim stop-gap measure in the case of ignorance.

Adam believed, unconditionally, the things which I had said. Even when I was making up a story, Adam believed. Why? Trust and truth. Both words are derived from the same ProtoIndoEuropean etymological root word, dru-. Adam trusted me, therefore, he believed me.

Wow! That realization was like a jack-hammer. I began to examine and question the ideas that I accepted as true, including the “sciences” upon which my degrees were based. I came to realize that many of my “truths” required acceptance of and trust in Professor X or Doctor Y or Guru Z. “It’s true. Doctor Y said so.”

That can be powerfully enticing, when one is disconnected from their own capacity for knowing.

I also thought about the connection between plagiarism and belief. A plagiarist copies another’s work, and pretends that it is her or his own work. A believer accepts another’s ideas and opinions, and repeats them as though the ideas and opinions are her or his own.

“To what degree is the human being capable of knowing rather than believing?”

The following conversation occurred by email with a reader of these blog posts, Steven Ings. I asked for Steven’s permission to publish these conversations, as they include many questions and illuminations of the principles I’ve been discussing in my recent series on the Genotypes and Phenotypes. In order to create an actual conversation-like flow, I’ve cut and paste the sequences to be more natural to the conversation we would have had in person, if we weren’t going back and forth on different points in our email sequence. I’ve retained Steven’s text in a plain font, and put all of my responses in italics, in order to differentiate who is the speaker at any given point. Due to the total length, I’ve broken the conversation up into four pieces to be published on four subsequent days. This is part 2:

Four questions:

1) Under which genotype would you classify Sepia and Medorrhinum?

Neither of these states of mind are Genotypes, of which there are only six outlined in my recent blogs. Sepia is a phenotype which I’ll be publishing a blog post on in the next couple of days, and Medorrhinum is the primary remedy for the constant disease of the chronic miasm of Sycosis. A genotype represents paramaters of our state of health, while the two remedies above are not states of health, but representations of particular disease states. Health and disease does not fall along 2 ends of the same spectrum.

Ah, the challenges of writing and asking questions. I did know that Sepia and Medorrhinum were not genotypes. I was attempting to ask, “When Sepia or Medorrhinum returns to a state of health, would there be a specific genotype that might manifest?”

There’s no single pattern of which disease tends to emerge from each specific genotype – it comes down to a proper diagnosis in every case, which will never lead astray.

2) Just as Carl Jung studied the astrological patterns of his clients, do you know of any homeopaths who are attempting to find cross-correspondences between homeopathic and astrological portraits?

There may be superficial resemblances between various types and remedies, but astrological signs and the genotypes are operating at two very different levels of our being. The astrological sign is related to our astral body, while the genotype is related to our physical body. These are 2 of the types that are useful to get to know the complete typological picture of a patient.

3) Among homeopathic veterinarians, Ledum has been extraordinarily effective in the treatment of tick-borne illnesses. With “better from cold” as one of the descriptors for Ledum, under which genotype would you classify this member of the Rhododendron family?

Same as Sepia and Medorrhinum, Ledum is not a genotype, but a remedy related to a state of disease. Again, the critical concept here is to understand the very profound difference between health and disease as two very different states.

As above, I miscommunicated. When Ledum returns to a state of health, to which of the six genotypes might it return?

Same as above – no pattern.

4) What are your thoughts and feelings about Rajan Sankaran’s “sensations?”

I haven’t yet explored Sankaran’s “sensations” extensively, although I have found tremendous value in his concept of “the Physician’s Reaction”, which is a very powerful method for diagnosing the patient’s core delusion. Being able to access “the objective feeling” (Das Gefühl, as Hahnemann called it) of the case, instead of the ever-changing “subjective feeling” of the patient is a tremendous breakthrough in sound methodology. The “highest diseases”, as Dr. Hahnemann referred to them, represent the “final frontier” of Heilkunst treatment, where most of our research has been focussed of recent years, and Sankaran has provided one of the keys for entering into this domain with a sound epistemological method.

If Siddharta Gautama is correct, then incarnation itself may be “the highest disease.”

Yes and no — that applies to the cosmic reality of life and death, but not to the higher pleromic realm, which opens a whole new spectrum of the ideogenic realm to be unfolded.

As for physicality, I relate to a statement attributed to Siddharta Gautama: “The cause of death is birth.”

The following conversation occurred by email with a reader of these blog posts, Steven Ings. I asked for Steven’s permission to publish these conversations, as they include many questions and illuminations of the principles I’ve been discussing in my recent series on the Genotypes and Phenotypes. In order to create an actual conversation-like flow, I’ve cut and paste the sequences to be more natural to the conversation we would have had in person, if we weren’t going back and forth on different points in our email sequence. I’ve retained Steven’s text in a plain font, and put all of my responses in italics, in order to differentiate who is the speaker at any given point. Due to the total length, I’ve broken the conversation up into four pieces to be published on four subsequent days. This is part 1:

For aeons there have been attempts to quantify, categorize, and classify the wondrous mystery that is a human being:

That is the driving force behind all scientific pursuits. The question always implied is “To what degree is the human being capable of knowing rather than believing?”. Most modern medical science is based on a theory of knowledge which essentially says that we are not capable of knowing, and that the best we can do is approximate knowledge through statistical and empirical methods. True forms of science, which are usually dismissed as “fringe” or “quack” actually tend to come closer to our true capacity for knowing that material science ever can.

What is a “true form of science?” The Latin root of “science” is scire, “to know.” Again, knowing and knowledge are different.

In brief, it is one which includes the entire range of cognitive capacity of the human being brought to bear on a given aspect of the world to produce true knowledge.

Does knowledge of Sulphur or Lycopodium bring one any closer to knowing oneself?

It’s an interim step towards self-knowledge, but not the entire journey.

When I was reading Bailey’s Homeopathic Psychology I reacted to the section called “Physical Appearance” at the end of each of remedy. For example, “Sepia women have a very characteristic appearance. Like traditional images of witches, they tend to be very thin, bony, and have long, thin limbs and digits and a long neck. The face is bony and angular, and the nose is usually long and thin, and is often hooked to some extent. The complexion is characteristically sallow, and the hair is usually straight and black, (or sometimes reddish or mousy brown), and is generally worn long.” Homeopathic Psychology, p. 309

Would Bailey have offered the same observations if he practiced in Soweto, South Africa or worked with Inuit in the Northwest Territories?

No, these physical descriptions are clearly not cross-cultural, or universal. Besides, they miss the point of the essence of each constitution being a state of mind, which is independent of any particular bodily configuration. There is a germ of truth to the physical stereotypes, but it is very tricky business to think one can diagnose through the physical appearance rather than directly through the state of mind.

There are the four humors of the Greeks, the three doshas of Ayurveda, the five elements of Taoism, the nine Enneatypes, the 16 Meyer-Briggs indicators, the many portraits that can be derived from astrology, and so much more Yet, with more than seven billion people on the planet (and no sets of identical fingerprints), I thoroughly enjoy that a person’s unique idiosyncrasies cannot be reduced to any single label.

Every human being is composed of both typological and individual elements. Many people deny being of any typology, in attempt to “save face” of their individuality, but it is not an either/or issue. Without unearthing all of our typologies, no true system of medical treatment could be possible.

To whom do we defer when “unearthing all of our typologies?” Who do we believe? There are so many choices: Kretschner’s Asthenic, Atheltic, Pyknic; Von Grauvogl’s Hydrogenoid, Oxygenoid, Carbo-Nitrogenoid; Hippocrates’ Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic … and on and on.

In the pursuit of knowledge through a mode of true science, there is no need to believe any one or any thing – a grounded epistemological method has no need for taking the path of authority / idol worship.

Staphysagria in one lifetime; Anacardium in the next: there is nothing that reincarnation cannot cure.

That’s true in principle, but by utilizing the higher cognitive faculties, we can speed up this process of reincarnation, and shed many layers within a single lifetime, which would otherwise take several.

While the scientific foundations of Heilkunst have been developing for over 200 years, it has not emerged in its full-blown form until the last 15 years, or so. Being a relatively new form of healthcare, it is not widely understood what it is, or how it is different from other modalities. I often begin to explain heilkunst to someone by relating it to other forms of healthcare which they are more likely to be familiar with. As a brief sampling, here are some of the ways Heilkunst is similar, yet different to other healthcare practices:

Naturopathy – This is the one most apparently similar, and yet most completely different from Heilkunst. I’ve written more extensively about this in a previous blog post, but I’ll mention a few of the key points here. Naturopathy and Heilkunst appear to be very close neighbours, when you observe that they both recommend diet and lifestyle modifications, and they both use homeopathic medicines. They will both also include any number of adjunct modalities, such as body work, or basic counselling. The critical difference is in the overarching orientation of each system, and therefore in the results. The Naturopathic approach may boast a variety of modalities it can apply, but is very weak in terms of a comprehensive philosophy of the human being in health and disease, and is therefore no different from Allopathic medicine in being constrained to measure its activity and success in terms of simply making symptoms disappear. Heilkunst is unique in orienting its approach to symptoms at a deeper level of the human being, where disease or its susceptibility originates, and where it needs to be addressed for a permanent improvement to health.

Psychology – While Heilkünstlers are not usually trained in depth psychology, it is inevitable that they will need to apply at least some common sense counselling skills for all kinds of emotions and life issues that come up in the course of a patient’s treatment. Unlike a Psychologist, who, at best, just uses “talk therapy” without prescribing any meds, or, at worst, does write prescriptions for non-curative, toxic medications, the Heilkünstler has full access to prescribe the specific homeopathic or homotonic remedy to give true relief to the emotional and/or physical issues that the patient is suffering, without any side effects. All the old Woody Allen jokes about “being with the same therapist for 30 years”, yet still obviously neurotic, represents a world very foreign to the practical and concrete results achieved by the Heilkünstler with their specific remedies.

New Age, or “Energy” Medicine – This is one of the stickiest categories to try to make sense of, and it is especially difficult to keep the clear scientific principles of Heilkunst from getting caught in this mystical web. While Heilkunst agrees with the premise that the human being is not solely material (atoms and molecules), it takes a different approach from any number of these mystical modalities, which have simply turned the tables on materialism, by asserting the equally dead-ended philosophical stance of mysticism. Rather than techniques and technologies which “just work” because a certain guru “said so”, every application of diagnosis, therapy or medicine within Heilkunst is understood on the basis of clear, scientific, and reproducible principles. This may not make any difference to some patients who don’t really care to know how something works, but it makes all the difference in terms of the results.

I used the word cloud generator at the Wordle website this morning with playful curiosity, and discovered an opportunity to blog about a few of the key words about the scientific framework and thought forms behind Heilkunst. The word cloud above was generated from some of my most recent blog posts, and, in no particular order, here are some thumb-nail definitions of the words which most grab my attention:

Remedy : We spend much of our lives actively seeking “remedies” for all of the problems we encounter in our life, and our thinking about health is no different. “Do you have a remedy for <fill in the blank>?” is certainly one of the top 3 questions I’m asked about my practice. The critical difference about the “remedies” of Heilkunst, is that while they do generally “solve” all kinds of problems, the key is in exactly how these remedies do what they do — rather than just being happy with having made a symptom “disappear”, the whole method is designed around making symptoms disappear in a way which is permanent, and which improves the general state of health of the patient in the process. This is in contrast to the vast array of drugs and modalities which can make a symptom disappear, but often at the cost of the underlying state of health.

State : To expand on the previous word, it is not just a symptom coming or going that commands the primary focus in Heilkunst, but rather on the underlying state of mind and which direction it is evolving or devolving. The working of our entire mind and body is governed by a particular state of mind, and whether it is one of health or one of disease. Dr. Hahnemann contrasted the concept of state with that of condition, which is where we usually tend to unproductively focus our attention — arthritis, bronchitis, migraines, and so on, are examples of conditions, but none of which will be linked back to the exact same state or states from one suffer of these conditions to the next.

The Feeling : I’ve certainly discussed various aspects of our treatment in terms of treating the time line of the patient, including emotional shocks and traumas. The term the feeling, however, is not limited to the emotions that the patient experienced in the past or present, but has a much deeper, aesthetic meaning, and we use it in terms of understanding the unique signature of each disease. The feeling refers to the unique, objective feeling which is identifiable with each state of disease, and not to any of the subjective feelings which may be felt in the patient or the practitioner in discussing an issue.

Life : Another unique aspect in Heilkunst as a medical science is its approach to healthcare which is fundamentally based on life, and living processes — contrast this, for example, with the teachings of physiology and pathology in the Allopathic system, which are based, respectively, on studying corpses, and on studying pathological disease states, and extrapolating them into the realm of life. The baseline, for example, of Dr. hahnemann’s methodology of provings, is health, as they are conducted on healthy individuals, who are observed as they illustrate deviations away from this healthy baseline when testing the effects of a medicinal substance. The system of testing drugs, by contrast, is conducted on groups of unhealthy people, and so the baseline of health is confounded. The definition of “success”, therefore, in Heilkunst is relative to a pure baseline of life and health, rather than a murky, relativistic, and statistical deviation from “disease”.

Normally, the goings-on inside the consult room are strictly confidential, and for good reason — to create a context which allows the patient to feel safe in their process to let go, and reveal things about themselves which they normally keep hidden. While writing these blogs, of course, the veil of confidentiality is still held firmly around every patient, but the impressions, dynamics, and principles of various real-life cases can be put forward for educational purposes.

The intimacy which develops in a real life case is difficult to reproduce in text, particularly with the principle of confidentiality in place, however, my aim is to deliver enough of these images so that you, the reader, can start to recreate that feeling of intimacy inside the consult room of your own mind’s eye.

Participation is something we’re all familiar with in our personal life, in terms of our close or intimate relationships, where we literally “take part” in the living flow of life energy of the other. This is in stark contrast to the “objective”, cold, detached form of observation we reserve either for business transactions, or the Western mode of science. As in our romantic love relationships, we stretch ourselves to empathetically see and feel the world as our beloved does, from their point of view.

Women traditionally do this more than men, who often feel at a loss as to how to find this way of relating, as they are more deeply incarnated into the physical realm, and by definition, more identified with the reality of separation than inter-connection.

Once, after a few minutes upon meeting a new patient, she remarked that my mode of “participating” her (this wasn’t exactly the word she used) was very different than other practitioners she’d previously been to, who were more in a Naturopathic or Allopathic mode of “observation”. It was notable that she did notice this, as most patients don’t necessarily realize that something different from the usual mode of interaction they are used to in healthcare is taking place (at least not intially).

All of this makes sense, once it is realized from a true understanding of disease that its diagnosis and treatment ultimately has to work at the depths, which can only be attained through participation, rather than the mere information at the surface available through normal observation.

The practitioner must be sufficiently healthy to be in contact with their own inner contact, in order to fully resonate with the patient’s, and to be able to diagnose at this level. The graduation requirement of the HCH to complete up to a certain point in treatment aids in this goal of allowing the practitioner to begin to see at this level, and then the continuing requirement of the CIHA (professional association of Heilkünstlers) for ongoing treatment and education further expands this capacity.